There were two vampires. A was a male and a female. The male was as tall as Emmett but not built like Emmett was. The male vampire was strong; you could see that clearly, the shirt he wore was straining against his chest and arms. He had cropped black hair and his eyes glinted red. The female next to him was as tall as me. I was five foot nine. She had long flowing chestnut brown hair and her eyes were black. She wasn’t standing still. She was kind of jumping from one foot to the other, restlessly.
Edward stood beside me. He was holding my hand tightly and I could feel the tension and rolling off him.
“Hello,” Carlisle greeted the vampires. “Can we help you with anything?”
“Nothing at all,” the male vampire spoke. “We were just passing through.”
The female’s head whipped round to look at him and her eyes threw him daggers. They weren’t just passing through. The male turned to her and gave her a be-quiet-and-stand-still look.
“If you were just passing through then carry on,” Carlisle said, keeping his voice calm and polite. “Are you all together?” the male asked.
“Yes,” Carlisle nodded. “This is my family.”
“Family?” the female’s voice sounded almost too young for her. She looked like an adult yet spoke like a teenager.
“Yes,” Carlisle repeated. “My wife Esme, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, Alice, Edward and Kayla.” Carlisle pointed to each of us when he said our names.
“You travel together?”
“No we have a permanent residence nearby.”
“You live here among the humans?” the male was surprised and confused. He only saw humans as a food source.
“Yes, now if you would like to carry on we were playing a game.”
I could hear Carlisle’s patience wearing off. He really wanted these vampires to go before they could realise I was human. And if they did, the female would be the first to get to my neck.
Her eyes were as black as night, like Edward’s were when he hadn’t hunted in a long time. I could see she needed to feed. She was restless and her nostrils flared occasionally as she picked up a scent. I looked up at Edward and his golden eyes were focused on the female. He was watching her carefully, listening to her mind. He wanted to be one step ahead if she decided to attack.
“May we join in?” the male vampire asked. “It’s been so long since we’ve played baseball, hasn’t it Persephone?”
Persephone nodded her head. Her eyes were darting around.
Carlisle looked at Edward. Edward took his eyes off Persephone and glanced at Carlisle. He nodded and his eyes were back on the female.
“Of course you can join in,” Carlisle said warmly. “We were just about to lose to skilful players. You can take their place.”
“Jared!” Persephone hissed at her partner.
“Not now, Persephone,” Jared spoke low and threateningly. “Later.”
“But I can smell it!” she was whining now. “You got the last one!”
Edward shifted his body so he was half covering me. The other Cullens’ who hadn’t spoken through this, bent low into crouches. We all knew what Persephone was talking about.
“Is there something wrong?” Carlisle asked, innocently. He knew what was wrong.
“Persephone hasn’t eaten in a while,” Jared explained. “We could smell a human as we ran through the forest but then we ran into you. She wants to go after it and feed but this is your territory, yes?”
“Yes,” Jasper spoke loudly from the back. “No one hunts on our land.”
“You see, Persephone?” Jared looked down at her. “We cannot go stalking humans on someone else’s land. It would be rude.”
“But I am thirsty!” She shouted. “You got the last human all to yourself you greedy pig!”
“Calm down!” Carlisle spoke loudly with authority.
Persephone shut her mouth and turned to him, looking like a naughty schoolgirl.
“You are upsetting our new friends,” Jared spoke disapprovingly to her.
Persephone glared up at him.
A clap of thunder sounded loud in the sky above. After that a flash of lightening brightened up the dark clearing, almost blinding my eyes. I blinked several times trying to clear my vision of coloured dots.
“She’s human!” I heard Persephone shriek. “I saw her eyes! Their not red or black or that freakish gold colour the others have!”
Edward bent low into a crouch and was stood directly in front of me. Everyone was still. No one moved and I tried to mimic them but my heart started to hammer against my chest. She had found me out.
“I hear her heartbeat and her blood pounding through her veins!”
Persephone tried to pounce at me but was met by Rosalie who pushed her back.
Jared ignored his partner’s attempts to get at me. He was watching me intently. I peeked out from behind Edward and saw his nostrils flare.
“We better get you out of here.”
Jasper was at my side and had a hold of my wrist. I looked at him and saw his golden eyes were actually full of concern.
“Come on,” he tugged my arm. “Let’s go before he goes crazy.”
He nodded his head at Edward. I let him drag me away and then we broke out into a run. I didn’t know where we were going, I just followed Jasper. My mind was full of worry. Now what would happen? Would Edward and the others fight the two human-blood drinking vampires? Would they let them go free if they promised not to hurt me?
Jasper could feel my worry and fear and almost at once I was calm. It wasn’t something I could shrug off. It took a hold of me and stayed with me. I didn’t want to feel calm, I wanted to panic because then I would have something to do instead of running to God knows where and it should have scared me that I wasn’t feeling scared but then I couldn’t feel scared with Jasper around. He was like a walking chill pill, that boy.
Jasper stopped suddenly. I stopped rather ungracefully and would have fallen over, face first, if Jasper’s strong hands hadn’t caught me and righted me. We were stood outside the garage of the Cullen house.
“Where are you going to take me?” I asked, uncertainly.
“I’m not taking you anywhere,” Jasper said. He opened the big shutter with one swift movement. “But I bet you Edward will.”
Inside the garage were cars, obviously. But some of these cars were expensive. Something a doctor wouldn’t be able to afford when looking after five teenagers.
There was Edward’s Volvo, a very shiny red BMW, a black Mercedes, a jeep and sitting in the corner a car I new very well because it was the car I wanted when I first came to America. An Aston Martin Vanquish. I was tempted to go over and just stroke the car and bask in its glory but then I remembered why I was in the garage and I reluctantly removed my mind of thoughts of the very nice car.
“The Aston Martin is Edward’s,” Jasper said, noticing my staring at the car.
“Really?” I said. Suddenly life didn’t seem so bad. Sure, there was a couple of killer vampires in the forest who would drink my blood if I didn’t have my own troupe of nice non-killing vampires but I did have a boyfriend who owned the car of my dreams and would let me drive if I asked him nicely.
“Yeah.” Jasper smiled. I think he knew my plan. He could feel the happiness that radiated from me. “But I think he’d make you get a license before you could touch it.”
“I have my ways of getting what I want.” I eyed the car and vowed that it would be mine.
Arms grabbed my waist and picked me up. I nearly screamed until I heard Edward’s voice low in my ear.
“I’m sorry. We have to leave."